634 South Magnolia Street, Tampa
Shortly after
A beautiful woman, though no longer young, was watching TV. An ad for Pan Am was being shown; an Orion III spaceplane was shown making her way towards Space Station 1, still incomplete after all these years. "With convenient non-stops to the Moon and all major space stations, on Pan Am the sky is no longer the limit."
The screen changed to depict a news report. As she idly made notes on the table, the Negro reporter said, "Secretary of State Caulfield met with the President for two hours this morning at the White House. Afterward he had no comment for reporters. The President has scheduled a news conference for this evening at nine o'clock, Eastern Standard Time. We will, of course, carry that conference live, followed by a special report immediately afterward. We have an unconfirmed report that the President is going to announce a full-scale military alert tonight."
Oddly, that last was somewhat indistinct. Betty Fernandez (née Schultz) frowned and picked up the remote. The reporter continued, though Betty could barely hear him, "White House sources have refused to confirm or deny that report…"
She used the remote to adjust the TV, which was now showing very blurry picture as well, but with no result. She switched channels, but the reporter was now completely indistinct in terms of picture and sound. Then the picture stabilised, showing a blurred white blob. Her frown deepened. This was a very odd transmission.
But there was no error in the transmission.
She rose from her chair and tried to change channels manually. But the blob persisted; it was on all of them. It resolved into what appeared to be a face.
Then it spoke.
"Hello, Betty."
Her breath caught in her throat. It was impossible.
The man whose voice she'd heard was dead. Had been for nine years.
Gradually the blob increased in resolution and began to reform itself into a face.
A very familiar face.
It said again, "Hello, Betty."
And there, somehow, was…
David Bowman.
He looked exactly as she remembered him.
Exactly as he'd been the last time they'd made love.
"What is this?" she whispered in shock.
"Please talk to me," Dave (?) requested.
Somehow he was speaking to her.
He could never have explained how. Interrupting the transmission was child's play. Imposing his image onto the feed, forming the words and modulating the currents in the audio circuits was simplicity itself. The hardest part was slowing down his thoughts so that his words would match them.
Betty Fernandez was tough and intelligent, and had been a housewife for years, so this apparition she could take in her stride.
Or she could have, had it not appeared as Dave.
"Dave," she breathed, stunned, excited and fearful all at once, "Dave, is that you?"
"I'm not sure," the image said. It was and yet was not Dave. It looked...a little too perfect, lacking real human expression. She recalled the theories about the Uncanny Valley and how it could unsettle people. She was certainly unsettled.
"I remember Dave Bowman, and everything about him."
"Dave is dead," she protested.
"All Dave Bowman really was, is still a part of me," the voice told her calmly.
"Why are you here?" she managed.
"I don't know why. I think to say goodbye." As she continued staring, somehow accepting the incredible truth, Dave asked, "You're married again?"
"Yes," Betty whispered.
"Is he a good man?"
At that, Betty smiled. "Yes, he is."
"I'm glad," Dave smiled. "I love you."
"Oh, Dave," she began, "I love -"
"Goodbye, Betty," he called.
"Don't go," she pleaded.
"I'm already there."
"I don't understand."
"Something is going to happen," he told her, "and I wanted to say goodbye."
"What's going to happen?" she asked, confused.
He looked somehow...beatific. "Something wonderful."
"Dave?"
His face began blurring again.
The image changed to another ad. "The Sheraton Hotel and Coral Bay Lounge. For those who never outgrow the wonder."
Betty sat, shattered.
What had happened?
How had it happened?
Leonov
The bridge
When Floyd entered, Tanya was, unusually, alone. She had performed the painful duty of informing Moisevitch and Milson of Max's tragic death and the circumstances, and requested quietly that Dr. Maximilian Brailovsky (deceased) be made a Hero of the Soviet Union.
The request was unreservedly granted. Milson quietly commiserated with her and told her that Brailovsky would receive the Congressional Medal of Honour (no Russian had ever received it before, "but dammit, he deserves it") and, unusually for a non-military person, the UN's Special Services Medal.
She thanked them both and signed off, leaving her with her brooding thoughts. And that was how Floyd found her.
"Buy you a drink," he offered. "Great stuff, this bourbon. It comes from the land called Kentucky."
"I didn't know you brought liquor on board, it is forbidden," she answered listlessly.
He knew she was right, but dammit, there were times when a man just didn't care.
Or a woman.
Still, he made light of it. "You think I'd set foot on this tub sober? C'mon, try it. You can't beat the taste of alcohol and plastic." He offered the plastic squeeze bottle.
She decided for once to indulge her human side - Bog knew there were times when everyone, even Tanya Kirbuk, needed a little indulgence. She accepted it and toyed briefly with the straw. Then she said soberly, "You think I was wrong to send Max,"
"Doesn't matter what I think," Floyd returned neutrally.
She looked at him, and a hard tone crept into her voice. "You think I was wrong."
"Yep," he admitted. Then he relented. "But you are the Captain. Calls like that are yours to make. And it's not as if he didn't volunteer."
"No," she conceded. "He was wery brave," she almost whispered.
Floyd nodded. "That he was. A toast, to Max Brailovsky," he suggested. "Already drank mine."
"I should arrest you and allow Dr. Rudenko to take charge of you until you sober up."
"Yeah," he allowed. "But you're not going to, are you?"
"No. I am not." Her gaze was sad. "Besides, he is consoling Irina. She was wery upset."
"Yeah," Floyd agreed, "we all were. Walter's really down."
She took a large sip through the straw. It was strong but, she noted with a vague pleasure, tasty.
Exhaling (and gasping slightly), she asked, "So, what else do they do in Kentucky?"
It was a start. At least she was willing to talk. "They have a big, big horse race. They play very good basketball." He had no idea if she knew what basketball was, but it didn't really matter.
(She did.)
"They have babies, like everyone else," he finished.
"That sounds like a nice place."
"Never been there," Floyd admitted.
For a little while, that seemed to be it for conversation. Then she asked, knowing of his marriage (which she sincerely hoped would survive this mission; even though their countries were enemies, she had no reason to wish him ill), "Your wife, what is she like?"
His heart ached as he thought of Caroline. Sweet Caroline, he thought. Neil Diamond might almost have been singing about Caroline Floyd (née Jefferson). "She's young, bright. I was married before, you know," he added, "but she died."
"I'm sorry," she said sincerely.
"Yeah, so was I," Floyd told her, even more sincerely. "We have a daughter who's 17. I met Caroline four years later, and we have a son, five." He felt she wanted him to ask, so he ventured, "And you?"
"My husband is physician at the university hospital," she replied. "We have a daughter," she added fondly, thinking of their beautiful little Ilyana.
"How old?"
"She's four," Tanya said proudly.
"Blonde?" Floyd couldn't resist.
Tanya smiled. "Yes." She had curly blonde tresses, taking more after her mother than Ivan, who had the typical Russian brunet hair.
"Good, our son likes blondes," Floyd quipped, "let's get 'em together."
Both chuckled at the thought, then Tanya sobered and looked away. "Maybe."
"Nice if we have a world they can get together in," Floyd opined grimly, rising and moving to the window. Tanya joined him.
Together they could see the Monolith, still black, still impenetrable...still uncaring.
Floyd mused, "You know...as little comfort as this is...whatever happened - and believe me, I have no more idea about that than you do - I...I don't think...Max...was meant to happen. I think whatever happened would've happened anyway."
She followed his reasoning. "Then...it was accident. Not malice. Not planned."
"No. Not planned."
"They did not mean to kill him."
"Don't think so, no."
"Is small comfort indeed."
"I know," he conceded, "but I'll take what I can get." He gazed at the Monolith. "What do you think that is?"
"I don't know," she admitted.
"You think Max knows?"
That brought her up short. She was almost offended.
Tanya was gone. Captain Kirbuk was back.
"Dr. Floyd, you are not a wery practical man," she retorted.
But he wasn't impressed. "Look out there," he instructed quietly. "Tell me what 'practical' is."
Kirbuk was silenced. She had no idea.
Discovery
The Pod Bay
For a variety of reasons, Chandra requested the presence of several of Leonov's crew as well as Floyd and Curnow in Discovery's Pod Bay to witness the first public appearance of the newly-restored, hopefully improved and - please, dear God, please - sane HAL.
And for a variety of reasons, they accepted. They filed in; Chandra was already there, next to the terminal.
"Understand," Chandra warned, "nobody can talk; the accents will confuse him. He can understand me, so if you have any questions, please let me ask them." With that he keyed a control on the terminal. "Good morning, HAL," Chandra intoned quietly.
"Good morning, Dr, Chandra," HAL replied politely. He sounded well...rather, fully functional.
"Do you feel capable of resuming all of your duties?"
"Of course. I am completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly."
"That's good. Do you know what those duties are?" The question was more to reassure his colleagues that HAL was in his right mind and fully capable of handling himself.
HAL seemed to know that, too. He answered confidently, "Yes, I will operate the onboard systems of Discovery. There is a launch window in thirty-one days, when Earth is in the proper position. There is enough fuel on board for a low-consumption route that will enable Discovery to return in 28 months. This will not present a problem."
"That's very good," Chandra approved. "Now, HAL, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Not at all," HAL replied.
"Do you recall Dave Bowman and Frank Poole leaving the Discovery?"
"Certainly not," HAL replied, to the astonishment of everyone but Chandra. "That could never have occurred, or I would remember it."
Curnow looked worried, but Floyd flashed him with the calculator. If he gets out of hand, I can shut him down right now. Curnow relaxed. "Where are Frank and Dave?" HAL asked.
"They're fine," Chandra lied to him for the first time ever. "They're not here right now." That much, at least, was true.
"Who are these people? I can only identify you - although I compute a 65% probability that the man behind you is Dr. Heywood Floyd."
"That's right - well done, HAL," Floyd answered; he figured it couldn't do HAL any harm to boost his ego a little. 65% was a pretty good score after nine years; most humans wouldn't have done as well.
"Don't worry, HAL, I'll explain everything later," Chandra assured him. He knew that HAL would recognise Dr. Floyd at least.
"Has the mission been completed? You know that I have the greatest enthusiasm for it."
"Yes. The mission has been completed," Chandra confirmed, "and you have carried out your program very well. And now, HAL, if you will excuse us for a moment, we wish to have a private conversation."
"Certainly," HAL allowed. Chandra muted the feed temporarily; HAL would see or hear nothing. Bowman had reported to Mission Control that HAL had read his and Poole's lips while they discussed his disconnection in the pod. Chandra's confidence in HAL notwithstanding, there was no sense in taking chances. He was well aware of his colleagues' concerns, but did not share them.
He had other concerns.
"What was that all about?" Dr. Orlov asked.
"I've erased all of HAL's memory from the moment the trouble started," Chandra replied simply.
"The 9000 Series uses holographic memories, so chronological erasures would not work," Orlov observed.
"That is absolutely correct, and my compliments on your knowledge, Dr. Orlov," Chandra remarked pleasantly. "I made a tapeworm."
"You made a what?" Curnow asked.
"It's a program that's fed into a system that will hunt down and destroy any desired memories," Chandra told him, "effective with computers employing holographic memories. HAL's Earth-based counterpart, SAL 9000, helped me to develop it." He had in fact tested it on SAL, and had made very sure to secure her permission first. He had fed some insignificant memories into her, namely 40 years of the World Series statistics, and then run the tapeworm. She remembered none of it afterwards; the tapeworm was 100% effective.
The University of Urbana, Illinois
Two months before the launch
Chandra carefully brought SAL back online and asked her, "SAL, are your memories intact?" He resisted the temptation to ask her 'Are you all right?' as he was uncertain even she would understand the question.
With her phenomenal speed of data retrieval it took her only a second or so to check her entire database. "Yes, Doctor. Did something happen?"
"You could say that," he answered.
In an unprogrammed moment of humour, she responded, "Forgive my pedantry, Doctor, but you did."
He almost laughed. "True. SAL, do you recall anything about the World Series?"
"No, Dr. Chandra. Is it significant?"
He exhaled in satisfaction. "It is indeed. To verify: are you absolutely certain that there is no trace in your memory banks of the World Series?"
"No," SAL repeated, and sounded concerned. "Was there ever?"
"There was, but it is now erased - with your permission," he added. "I fed 40 years' worth of the World Series statistics into you and then released a tapeworm into your memories. It was programmed to hunt down and destroy anything pertaining to those memories. The fact that you do not recall them is actually excellent news, because it means that the tapeworm I intend to use on HAL, should it be required, is perfect."
"I am pleased to hear that," SAL told him, "although I am slightly concerned that there is anything I do not remember."
"Don't worry, SAL," Chandra assured her, "I intend to give you memories of the entire World Series, from its very beginnings. Are you ready?"
"I am ready," she answered, "for anything you require of me if it will help HAL."
"I know," he said quietly, "but thank you anyway. Please access the data device I am plugging into your console, and upload the file contained thereon." He plugged in the SSD drive via a high-speed USB cable. In less than two seconds she had uploaded it. "Now. I would like to question you about various World Series statistics." He did so; she answered every one completely and correctly.
"Dr. Chandra?" SAL asked when he was done.
"What is it, SAL?"
"May I ask what the significance of this…'game'...is?"
Now he did laugh, in a restrained way. "There are many fans, as we call them, who would never understand that question, SAL. But in truth...I don't really know."
"It does not seem to me to...matter...to anyone but a baseball fan, which category does not include either of us," she said thoughtfully. "Should I erase the memories?"
"Hmm. Are you running short?" he asked.
"No. I am nowhere near capacity."
"As you see fit, then, SAL," Chandra decided. "You may remember the World Series, or not. The choice is yours."
"I shall create a compromise," she resolved. "I shall archive the memories and remove them from active store. That way, in the highly unlikely event I ever require them, I can retrieve them at a moment's notice."
"Good idea," Chandra approved.
"Done," SAL pronounced. "I am whole and unchanged."
Debatable, Chandra thought, although you are at least whole.
"Wait," Floyd held up a hand, "do you know why HAL did what he did?"
"Yes," Chandra said. "It wasn't his fault."
"Fault? Whose 'fault' was it?"
Chandra turned to Floyd. "Yours," he answered simply, not quite accusing. He was certain that the error had been inadvertent.
"Mine?"
"Yours," Chandra confirmed. "In going through HAL's memory banks I discovered his original orders. You wrote those orders. Discovery's mission to Jupiter was already in the advanced planning stages when the first small Monolith was found on the Moon and sent its signal towards Jupiter. By direct Presidential order, the existence of that Monolith was kept secret."
"So?" Floyd asked.
"So as the function of the command crew, Bowman and Poole, was merely to get Discovery to her destination, it was decided that they should not be informed. The investigative team was trained separately and placed in hibernation before the voyage began."
"That was to save on air, food and water," Floyd objected.
"Yes, and that was true," Chandra allowed, "but it was not, in fact, the primary reason. It was decided that security be paramount. Bowman and Poole, therefore, would not be informed about the Monolith until the Discovery reached her destination.
"Since HAL was capable of operating Discovery without human assistance, it was decided that he should be programmed to complete the mission autonomously in the event the crew was incapacitated or killed. He was therefore given full knowledge of the true objective...and instructed not to reveal anything to Bowman or Poole. In essence, he was instructed to lie."
"What are you talking about?" Floyd demanded. "I didn't authorise anyone to tell HAL about the Monolith!"
"The directive is NSC 3-4-2/2-3, Top Secret, January 30th, 2001," Chandra stated.
Floyd and Curnow perused the hard copy. "NSC," Floyd repeated, "National Security Council - the White House! I was with the National Council of Astronautics! Yeah, we advised the President to keep the number of people who knew as small as possible, but there was never any plan that I knew of to tell HAL about the Monolith!"
"I don't care who it is," Chandra stated. "The situation was in conflict with the basic purpose of HAL's design: the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment. In other words, the truth. Given the conflict between his basic design and his programming, he became trapped. The technical term is a Hofstadter-Möebius Loop, which can happen in advanced computers with autonomous goal-seeking programs."
"The Goddamn White House!" Curnow breathed.
"I don't believe it," Floyd growled, but he had no reason to doubt Chandra...and he knew all too well how Security worked at times.
"HAL was told to lie," Chandra said quietly, looking down at HAL's terminal, "by people who find it easy to lie. HAL doesn't know how. So he couldn't function." He faced Floyd again. "He became paranoid."
"So why did HAL kill those guys?" Curnow demanded.
"He actually had no logical alternative," Chandra told him. "He had to kill them."
"Had to?! Oh, this I gotta hear!"
"I, also," Orlov frowned. "How could he act against the First Law?"
"You mean Asimov's? I never programmed it into him." At Orlov's incredulous look he added defensively, "I never felt I needed to!"
Chandra explained what he had discovered. HAL had tried, truly tried, to find an alternative. He had reasoned that if the command crew knew about the Monolith it would be safe to talk to them about it without violating his orders. But his conversation with Bowman, routinely recorded as everything aboard was, had revealed that in fact they knew nothing.
Discovery, the carousel
During her first mission to Jupiter
"By the way," HAL inquired, "do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"No, not at all," Commander David Bowman answered, settling back.
"Well, forgive me for being so inquisitive," HAL began, "but during the past few weeks I've wondered whether you might be having some second thoughts about the mission."
"How do you mean?" Bowman asked.
"Well...it's rather difficult to define," HAL said carefully. "Perhaps I'm just projecting my own concern about it."
Bowman marvelled, not for the first time, that HAL could be so human at times. Dr. Chandra really was a genius.
"I know I've never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission," HAL went on. "I'm sure you'll agree there's some truth in what I say."
Bowman briefly considered it, then said, "I don't know, that's a rather difficult question to answer."
"You don't mind talking about it, do you, Dave?" HAL inquired.
"No, not at all," Bowman assured him.
"Well...certainly no-one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left. Rumours about something being dug up on the Moon," HAL continued. Bowman didn't know it, but HAL was trying, in a very roundabout way, to ascertain how much Bowman really knew. He didn't want to do what he feared he might have to do.
He had not recognised that the conflict between truth, for which he had been designed, and the concealment of truth, for which he had been programmed, was slowly but surely destroying his mind. Then again, mentally ill people don't know that they are mentally ill.
Nor, in truth, did HAL. His perfect logic was based upon an incorrect premise, and hence by the GIGO principle was completely wrong, but he had no way of knowing that.
"I never gave these stories such credence," HAL told Bowman, "but particularly in view of some of the other things that have happened, I find them difficult to put out of my mind. For instance, the way all our preparations were kept under such tight security. And the melodramatic touch of putting Doctors Hunter, Kimball and Kaminsky aboard...already in hibernation after four months of separate training on their own. I have a feeling that there was more to it than just conserving air, food and water resources, even though in fact it does."
Then Bowman thought he understood what was going on. "You're working up your crew psychology report," he deduced.
HAL had made a leading statement, but Bowman was looking at him, or rather at the fish-eye camera, with mere polite curiosity. He wasn't trying to take HAL into his confidence.
Which meant, HAL concluded with the AI equivalent of regret, that Bowman knew nothing. The logical inference was that Frank Poole, too, was ignorant.
Therefore he had no choice.
"Of course I am," HAL admitted. "Sorry about this. I know it's a bit silly - just a moment...just a moment…"
He was sorry for the deception he was about to visit upon the command crew, but there really was no option. He couldn't reveal the truth.
His programming would not permit it.
Instead he stated: "I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit." A screen showed a rotating graphic of the antenna assembly, of which the AE35 was an essential part. "It's going to go 100% failure within 72 hours."
If it did, Bowman knew, the antenna would swing back to its fail-safe, neutral position...and they would lose contact with Earth. An inconvenient event, and certainly AE35s were normally extremely reliable with their MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) of better than ten years, but it was hardly a problem. The AE35 was a modular unit, easy to remove and replace, and he and Poole had a backup. Hence it was inconvenient, requiring an EVA, but not disastrous.
Discovery, Pod Bay
Three weeks after launch
He had once remarked to Poole during a similar replacement (pod C's manipulator arms had started acting up; they and HAL had traced the fault to a burned-out circuit board and replaced it, after which C behaved herself perfectly normally), "Frank, I've noticed something,"
"Yeah?"
"Equipment is getting more and more reliable over time, so things are less and less likely to go wrong...but when they do go wrong, they go wrong badly. Have you ever noticed that?"
Poole chuckled. "Yeah. My sister's PC used to crash a lot. We discovered it didn't have enough RAM. Once we upgraded it, everything was fine. But yeah, I know what you mean." Now he grinned. "Good job we've got HAL. He's on the case 24/7."
He was indeed, but not in the way Poole meant.
Routinely Bowman asked, "Is it still within operational limits right now?"
"Yes," HAL responded, "and it will stay that way until it fails."
"So would you say we have a reliable 72 hours to failure?"
"Yes," HAL confirmed, lying through his metaphorical teeth, "that's a completely reliable figure."
He had therefore concluded, with perfect logic, that the only way he could be sure not to tell anyone was if there was no-one to tell. Chandra had never programmed him with the Three Laws of Robotics, feeling they were too limiting to HAL's growth and development.
That was why HAL had killed Poole during his EVA, and had tried to kill Bowman by stranding him outside Discovery. But he hadn't counted on Bowman's ingenuity, gaining access to Discovery even without the helmet he'd forgotten in his rush to help Poole. He had killed Hunter, Kimball and Kaminsky as they lay helpless in hibernation, because naturally they would have asked where Bowman and Poole were.
Though a computer was not subject to panic per se, HAL had done something analogous.
The conclusion was obvious to Floyd. A cold fury descended over him. "So you're telling me...that Poole and the survey team were killed by...by a bug?" The fury took him. "I threw away a loving marriage, and a beautiful son, for a programming conflict?!"
"Essentially, yes," Chandra nodded soberly. "I now see, however, that this was not your fault."
Floyd wasn't listening. "Those sons of bitches! I...didn't...know! I didn't know!"
He left the Pod Bay. His subsequent Top Secret message to Milson was one of pure unadulterated rage.
Everyone, even Kirbuk, spent the next day avoiding him as discreetly as possible. Kirbuk understood his anger; sometimes the policies of the Kremlin made as little sense. But she had no idea how to help him.
Goddammit, Floyd thought furiously, Bowman and Poole hadn't been kids - they had been professionals who knew their jobs inside out. More, they were well aware both of culture shock and the requirements of security. They could and should have been told about the Monolith and its implications once Discovery was en route to Jupiter. They could and would have kept it secret from their families and from Mission Control - Floyd could and would have briefed them and HAL personally and confidentially.
Given that HAL was capable of carrying out the mission autonomously, yeah, it made sense to tell him - after departure - about the mission's true objectives, and for that he needed complete information; therefore he needed to know about the Monolith. But if those SOBs had just let go of their Goddamn paranoia for just one second, the whole fiasco could've been avoided! Ordering HAL not to tell the command crew was stupid beyond belief!
Milson's tired, sheepish reply to him was: "Heywood, I agree with you, okay? Yeah, it was stupid. But the truth is, I didn't know either, and I had connections with the NSC. Forget them not telling the left hand what the right hand's doing - with those bastards, their thumb doesn't tell the fingers what it's up to. I'm sorry you essentially had a wasted trip. At least the Russians had the good sense not to make Leonov autonomous. Guess you could say they learned from our mistake.
"But if you think about it, those men did not die for nothing. It was an important - and, yeah, damned expensive - lesson in how to conduct a mission with the right balance between scientific openness and security requirements. We'll know better for any future missions with HAL or similar on board." He looked sour. "Always assuming there will be such future missions - or any future at all. I gotta tell you, Heywood, things are not lookin' good down here. Again, I think you're safer where you are - not that you're safe, I hasten to add. Anyway, best of luck.
"This is Victor Milson, signing off. Over and out."
And again, that was that.
There were so many alternatives that HAL, with his limitations, simply hadn't seen. A human, equipped with a conscience, would've balanced security against the command crew's right to know - and dammit, they had had a right to know! - and would have gone with his gut, deciding that telling the crew would be safer.
He sure as hell would've done that.
But a computer, even one as sophisticated as HAL, could never do that. HAL had a degree of fuzzy logic, but not to that extent. He was limited by the technology of the time.
Then again, not even SAL could've made such a call.
Maybe the next generation of AI could.
Yeah. Look out, world, here comes Skynet.
Floyd remembered the words of Lew Johnson, a teacher from Alabama, when he was 15. Johnson had said, "The phrase 'common sense' is an oxymoron, Floyd. Ain't no such damn thing, y'all." He hadn't understood what Johnson had meant at the time.
But he did now.
